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Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Syria, ISIS, and the US-UK Propaganda War

With the war in Syria raging in its fifth year, and the Islamic
State wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it’s
clear that the entire region has been made into one large theater of
conflict. But the battlefield must not be understood solely as a
physical place located on a map; it is equally a social and cultural
space where the forces of the US-UK-NATO Empire employ a variety of
tactics to influence the course of events and create an outcome amenable
to their agenda. And none to greater effect than propaganda.

Indeed, if the ongoing war in Syria, and the conflicts of the
post-Arab Spring period generally, have taught us anything, it is the
power of propaganda and public relations to shape narratives which in
turn impact political events. Given the awesome power of information in
the postmodern political landscape, it should come as no surprise that
both the US and UK have become world leaders in government-sponsored
propaganda masquerading as legitimate, grassroots political and social
expression.

London, Washington, and the Power of Manipulation

The Guardian recently revealed how
the UK Government’s Research, Information, and Communications Unit
(RICU) is involved in surveillance, information dissemination, and
promotion of individuals and groups as part of what it describes as an
attempt at “attitudinal and behavioral change” among its Muslim youth
population. This sort of counter-messaging is nothing new, and has been
much discussed for years. However, the Guardian piece actually exposed
the much deeper connections between RICU and various grassroots
organizations, online campaigns, and social media penetration.

The article outlined the relationship between the UK Government’s RICU and a London-based communications company called Breakthrough Media Network which
“has produced dozens of websites, leaflets, videos, films, Facebook
pages, Twitter feeds and online radio content, with titles such as The
Truth about Isis and Help for Syria.” Considering the nature of social
media, and the manner in which information (or disinformation) is spread
online, it should come as no surprise that a number of the viral
videos, popular twitter feeds, and other materials that seemingly align
with the anti-Assad line of London and Washington are, in fact, the
direct products of a government-sponsored propaganda campaign.

In fact, as the authors of the story noted:

One Ricu initiative, which advertises itself as a
campaign providing advice on how to raise funds for Syrian refugees, has
had face-to-face conversations with thousands of students at university
freshers’ fairs without any students realising they were engaging with a
government programme. That campaign, called Help for Syria, has
distributed leaflets to 760,000 homes without the recipients realising
they were government communications.

It’s not hard to see what the British Government is trying to do with
such efforts; they are an attempt to control the messaging of the war
on Syria, and to redirect grassroots anti-war activism to channels
deemed acceptable to the political establishment. Imagine for a moment
the impact on an 18-year-old college freshman just stepping into the
political arena, and immediately encountering seasoned veteran activists
who influence his/her thinking on the nature of the war, who the good
guys and bad guys are, and what should be done. Now multiply that by
thousands and thousands of students. The impact of such efforts is
profound.Read more

We need to remember that, psychopaths and other personality disordered individuals really have no choice but to be what they are; they are like forces of nature. But normal human beings DO have a choice as to whether they will accept abuse or not. By accepting abuse, they give power to the psychopaths to abuse others so it is not just a matter of self-preservation; it is a matter of making sure that our children have a future. It seems that, in a world where the people cannot or will not, rise up against psychopathy in power, the Cosmos will do it for them, and take them out as well for their silence and their weakness. The bottom line is, nobody and no event is going to “save” anyone. It is only human beings, individually and collectively, who have the power to BE salvation.” – Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Plans for control of the evil forces that have been loosed in the world, attempts to compensate the evil- doing by good works or sympathy for the victims, efforts to safeguard the peace or to effect ideal solutions of all the material problems involved, can do little to change the nature of the situation. The real problem, namely, the question of what can be done for civilization in face of the nonhuman forces arising from the collective unconscious in thousands or rather millions of individual persons, will remain untouched. However, if only one human being has met and solved the problem in himself, he will be a living demonstration of a solution. Such an individual carries with him the germ of a renaissance of the spiritual values of mankind.

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